The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-08-29
TIE MARION COUNTY RING.

| indictment for conspiracy to violate the cleo
ton law. He is the ruling spirit in the whole
business. and it is to his patriotic efforts that
! we owe almost exclusively the rottenness re-
vealed in the management-and the butter
1 of the insane hospital. Beside him CDR"
h Harrison shrinks into insignificant proper
! tons, Trustee Gapen dwindles into the dimen
sions of very common place political sharp,
| while Simeon, supposed to be slick, is the
stupidest sort of blunderer. But the ring is
big thing, and Mr.. Sullivan is the biggest
thing in the ring. Round him revolve the
| Harrisons, and Gapens, and Coys, and Spans,
and Halls, and Bernhamers and all the lesser
planets, drawing life and light from the central
| sun.
In the first place, "Dr" Harrison is abso-
lutely the slave of Sullivan for it Sulli
van that upset the old Fishback board and
lobbied the Brown bilp' through, under
| which Harrison was appointed. 1t was under
stood that Harrison to be president of the
board before the law passed. Thus it was
that the thrifty Mr.. Sullivan provided a
market for his worm-infested butter.
And so it is that he can threaten
the Boone county blusterer when he
seems disposed to grow obstreperous
| Hall, the book and storekeeper at the hospi-
tai, is also beholden to Sullivan in the same
way He, too understood that he was to be
taken care of, when Mr.. Sullivan should sue
coed in persuadng the Legislature to adopt
that act which will serve to immortalize the
name of Jason B. Brown, and so he worked en-
Enthusiastically for the BILL and was present at
Mr.. Sullivan's jubilee supper. Mr.. Hall hav-
| ing thus worked himself into the service of
the State, was disposed to be very chart
| table to the bla ok headed centipedes which
| had wormed themselves into Mr.. Sullivan's
fancy creamery" Had not he and Harrison
both before their respective pairs of eyes, as
an awful warning, the fatet of the Fishback
boards And did they not Know that that
board had fallen because it had refused to
pay Sullivan creamery prices for some of his
oleomargarine They certainly have needed
the warning. Then we come to Coy. Mr.. Coy
| is the proprietor of a saloon which Mr..
Sullivan holds mortgage, and is also the
| chairman of the Democratic county COM
mittee. OF course he is devoted to the inter-
| ests of his mortgage. Another bond of SYM
| pathy between these two gentlemen grows out
| of the fact that they are co-defendants in the
conspiracy indictment, and it is through Coy
and through this indictment that the con-
nection of several other leading Democrats
with the ring is to be traced. Counselman,
| for instance, along with Span, Bernhamer
and Coy, was arrested last fall for conspiracy.
He was afterwards appointed doorkeeper by
the Senate. When it was proposed to re-
move him, Mr. Sullivan's debtor and cocoon
spirator, Coy, went to Senator Weir and told
him that Counselman must be kept quiet and
| that it wouldn't do to dismiss him. Here
we come upon distinguished gentleman now
in the service of the federal government, Mr..
Leon o. Bailey, deputy district attorney
Mr. Bailey rose in his place in the Senate, and,
in one of those speeches for which he is ia
nous, defended Counselman and the rest of the
gang as pure and spotless patriots who were
the victims of persecution at the hands of
knaves like Silas T. Bowen, Lucius B. Swift,
Solomon Claypool and William Henderson.
Mr. Bailey was virtually the chairman of the
speci al packed Senate committee which tried
the Indiana Civil-service Reform Association
because it had dared to question the inno-
cence of Harrison, Gapen, Sullivan & Co.
And when the conspiracy trial came on, so
closely identified was the deputy district at
| 4l,o
Cling in the tolls of the law, that he was not
allowed to make speech on that occasion.
In the same general way the others of the
tally-sheet gang parts of the mystic circle.
Held together by sympathy and consolidated
by the pressure from without, the ring has
| hitherto successfully resisted all attempts to
down any of its members. But the con-
nection between Sullivan and some of these
persons is very close. He himself testified
before the House committee that he was
the bonds of Coy, Counselman, Span and
Bernhamer, when the investigation before
Commissioner Van Buren, was in progress
last winter. Budd is deputy of
Sullivan, and is a of j. r. Budd,
the man who divided the Insane Hos
pital contracts for butter and produce pretty
nearly equally with the county clerk Rear
don is also a deputy in the county clerks
Office. Span was attorney for the trustees
of the hospital before the Senate committee.
as well as-to go back Ettle--for that ex-
pensive luxury, Mr.. Township Trustee Kitz
DIR. Metcalf is local politician of the Coy
| eeboo1 and was formerly mariner of he mo-
torious DIR. Foulds whom Sullivans Or"
Harrison tried to force upon Dr. Rogers. the
predecessor of DR.. Fletcher Rogers wouldn't
yield, and so he had to go. And, finally, we
| coma to Mr. HYDE. who is now